I was only going to do three posts in my writing series but here I am with a bonus! My last post about informational writing was a long one and I realized I have so many resources for my first graders that I thought it would be helpful to give you some more specific examples to start with the basics before you actually write an informational piece with your first grade students. I didn’t want to put you guys in information overload! Us teachers deal with enough to make our heads spin. Alright! So my last post I talked about the basics of starting your informational writing unit but I have three great resources that will give you everything you need to start at the beginning with the facts and run with it. If I am being honest there is so much planning and organization that goes into beginning a writing unit but having that clear cut plan is the most crucial step in introducing informational writing. So let’s start at the beginning…with facts.
Choosing a Topic
Choose a topic that your first graders are interested in because if they have high interest it leads to high engagement. This is the perfect opportunity to integrate topics of science and social studies into the writing unit. So here are three resources that you can use to start today!
Sea Life and Ocean Animals , Polar Animals, Farm Animals– all three of these include a ton of different animal options, bulletin board materials and fact sheets. I have used these to display in the classroom, my kids love love showcasing their work so this was perfect for doing that!
Get to Work
After you have chosen a topic this is where you start the building of knowledge and molding your kids to become the experts. I always start with defining facts…giving concrete examples of what a fact is. Inside this resource about sharks, I have included articles which can help you teach your students how to close read and code text. Teaching our students how to mark and highlight their reading as something they want to remember is a lifelong skill they will need. I typically do an article a day, have your student’s read the article, do text coding and within this resource you can have them write either an All About fact sheet or a book. The best part is when you start with this activity you are laying the foundation for writing an informative piece because you are starting with the basics of outlining the facts. Using this resource is exactly what you need as a beginners guide to starting informative writing!!!
The first time we do research (and maybe the second) I model how to take notes and write. We use anchor charts like the one pictured below. Yes, that is a shark fin on my head =)
Next Steps..
The resources I have listed above are perfect for kindergarten and first grade students to begin the process of informative writing because we have to start somewhere!!! Once I feel like my students have mastered the research and fact part is when we can really dive in but be sure to refer back to my informative writing post to get the down low on how we go about it in my classroom! Remember to use anchor charts to get them chatting about what they already know about ocean animals and what they want to know. Next….grab those mentor texts!!! Have your first graders start digging through those books to find facts that they will want to use in the papers. These mentor texts below have been awesome resources for my first graders. Using mentor texts is honestly just a super authentic and simple way to get your student’s excited and interested in a topic. I have posted a few of my favorites below.
National Geographic Kids: Everything Dolphins
Now what? So you have chosen a topic, activated their interest and finished the fact sheets…now it’s time to put this into motion and dive head first into your informative writing unit. I really wanted to take some time with this post to share with you guys that you have to start somewhere and for me it’s using these All About sheets because it has made the transition to writing so MUCH simpler and my kids actually understand the basics and foundation. Teaching writing to first graders is a full time job in itself and I just wanted to shed some light on this topic to let you know even after years and years of experience there are still days where I struggle with it. It’s normal and we seriously all feel like this at some point. I hope you found this blog series to be helpful…I can’t wait to hear the good, the bad and the ugly about how your writing units are going!
